Language, Logic and Mathematics: Reflections on Aspects of Education and Research.

Higginson, William

Discussed are some issues and queries about research in language and language acquisition. In particular, the area of inquiry is the logic subjacent to communication. In question here are the foundations of communication. What, if anything, underlies language? The unorthodox position developed in this paper has ambitious assumptions and slim empirical foundation. Nevertheless, it has strong links with some classical intellectual theories. The general argument to be made runs roughly as follows: The human animal is, to a great extent, characterized by the mathetic capacity. This innate capacity, which is related to the primal abilities of classifying and rule-generating and following, is essentially mathematical in nature and underlies all cognitive activity including language. Relative to their own sets of assumptions, human beings tend to be logical or consistent beings. A rich and not well-developed area for understanding the nature of language and its acquisition, and intellectual growth in general, is the study of children in situations where their implicit sets of rules or assumptions become clear. The clarity, precision, and power of certain elementary mathematical structures make them ideal vehicles for the study of the mathetic capacity and its manifestations. (Author/MK)